John W. Whitehead

It’s been a little over six months since my wife Carol passed away. Every occasion that Carol would have delighted in has become a little death for me now–Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year’s and Valentine’s Day–all those occasions she fussed over and planned for endlessly, for weeks on end.

When I was a child in the 1950s, the magic of Christmas was promoted in the schools. Fast forward a mere 50 years, and Christmas is being eradicated. In fact, there is a phobia about Christmas, and it’s all because of those first six letters, C-H-R-I-S-T.

As we have lost our sense of meaning, morality and spirituality, the erosion of our freedoms on virtually every front has accelerated. And, make no mistake about it, freedom in the true sense of the word is always undergirded by a common moral and religious system. As James Adams opined: “Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”

President Obama is busy trying to stay in power, keep his party in power and add to his legacy, but that’s not his job. His job as president is to get this country back on its feet economically and to represent all of the people–again, whether they be Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Tea Party activists or people who watch the FOX News Network (a network he has been making war with).

Imagine a world exempt from parking tickets, where gym membership is free and health care is second-to-none. In order to receive these benefits, you also only have to work two, maybe three days a week—a time period during which you will be shuttled around in a nice car. The other days of the week you can spend at home with your family. Welcome to life in congress.

Truth is often lost when we fail to distinguish between opinion and fact, and that is the danger we now face as a society. Anyone who relies exclusively on television/cable news hosts and political commentators for actual knowledge of the world is making a serious mistake. Unfortunately, since Americans have by and large become non-readers, television has become their prime source of so-called “news.”

Glenn Beck has become a media phenomenon. The radio DJ-turned-television host has attracted a remarkable following, resulting in a popular radio show, three New York Times best-selling books and a television program that has made him the object of scorn and praise alike. Welcome to the “fear chamber” or “doom room.”

Clearly, the public schools are fostering civic ignorance. For example, a recent study of 1000 Oklahoma high school students found that only 3% would be able to pass the U.S. Immigration Services’ citizenship exam, while incredibly 93% of those from foreign countries who took the same test passed.

Religion and religious expression have been objects of censorship in the public schools for quite some time. However, the intolerance of anything related to religion has taken a turn for the absurd in recent years. It makes no difference that the material in question does not proselytize, or that it was presented to people who by and large do not know that it was religious, or even that it is not meant to be religious. What matters is what school officials consider to be religious.

It was 50 years ago on Friday, October 2, 1959, that The Twilight Zone premiered on national television. Even though it was never a top twenty show, The Twilight Zone was a jewel that captured a generation. However, it almost didn’t happen. Its subject matter troubled television executives, and the fact that the episodes often left viewers hanging went against formula.

During his nine months in office, Obama has appointed an AfPak czar, an AIDS czar, a car czar, a border czar, a climate czar, a cyber security czar, a green jobs czar, a pay czar, a drug czar, a health czar, a science czar and a war czar, and that’s just to name a few of the approximately 32 czars in the Obama White House. And, most likely, there’s more to come.

Much like the colonists who dared to stand up to Great Britain in 1776, we too must confront the massive machinery of government. They brought about a revolution because of their courageous tenacity. Likewise, if we are to pull through these trying times with our freedoms intact, it will take the dedication of each and every one of us.

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), approximately 797,500 children go missing every year. That works out to roughly 2,185 children a day. Many of these young people never find their way home again. Too many become victims of sexual trafficking and prostitution. A 2009 report by Shared Hope International indicates that more than 100,000 children under the age of 18 are currently being trafficked in the United States.

America’s public schools were once considered the hope of freedom and democracy. Instead, for the more than 49 million students who are attending elementary and secondary public schools this fall, their time in school will be marked by overreaching zero tolerance policies, heightened security and surveillance and a greater emphasis on conformity and behavior-controlling drugs–all either aimed at or resulting in the destruction of privacy and freedom.

Is there a purpose to life? Is there a meaning to life? Are we all aimless beings, mere products of chance, here merely to consume, grind out a living and die? Or is there some bigger purpose behind the stage play we call life?

Our president is not only trying to shut down political dissent, he is actively soliciting Americans to “snitch” on other Americans for denouncing his unconstitutional takeover of health care and our freedoms. Thomas Jefferson, who helped launch a rebellion against a government oppressing the American people over 200 years ago, said, “A little rebellion now and then is a good thing…a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.”

Have you wondered why, unlike the last socialized medicine push in 1994, a number of medical people and organizations have backed President Obama’s government health care push? In addition to the adage “if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu,” it may also be the vastly expanded base of insured patients they may receive in exchange for selling out. We’re looking at Big Business and Big Government fused into a freedom-crushing corporate state.

Columnist John Whitehead shared his experience with grief and faith in God after the recent passing of his wife of 42 years. As C.S. Lewis found, grief is a cauldron in which faith may be tested…and ultimately made stronger.

In the wake of Michael Jackson’s death, the media has shown itself eager to make a buck from a man’s demise. Not only is this crass, but it’s further evidence that news services today do little to educate and inform…and that’s not healthy for our republic.

Have the American people become so ignorant of their own country, Constitution and history that a grown woman could see the First Amendment written on a blackboard and think it is a new law? Apparently so. Do you know the Constitution, or just what the media and education establishment think you should know?

Massive commercial campaigns aimed at young children are seducing them out of their innocence and natural development. Lack of parental discipline and restraint have given these forces unprecedented access to children at a time when the moral fiber of our society has never been more tattered.

John W. Whitehead My lives as a radical (according to the FBI): an “enslaver of women” (according to pro-choicers); a suspiciously unpredictable civil-libertarian (according to the ACLU); a dangerous defender of alleged pornography (according to my friend Catherine MacKinnon); an irrelevant, anachronistic integrationist (according to assorted black nationalists); and, as an editor at the Washington […]

John W. Whitehead Political correctness—a philosophy that discourages diversity of viewpoints—has become a guiding principle of modern society. If someone might be offended, freedom of speech is erased. Nowhere is this more evident than in the schools, especially when religion is involved. Things have gotten so ridiculous that the mere mention of God is enough […]

John W. Whitehead It was an eerie scene at Aztec Stadium in Mexico City, as teams America and Tecos played in a nearly empty stadium. Normally, the 100,000-seat facility, one of the largest in the world, would have been packed with soccer enthusiasts. But under orders from the Mexican government, it has been closed to […]